Should I Take My Fry Home?

[emo]

I have 8 shubunkin fry in a 13g growout tank, they are about a month old just over 1cm long. They have been feeding on newly hatched brine shrimp once to twice a day.

There's a bit of a spanner in the works now. Tomorrow morning i'm leaving to go home to see my family for Christmas, i'll be gone for just over a week. My girlfriend will be darting back and forth between her family's and here so she can keep my tropical tank topped up with ammonia to keep it cycling. Trouble is she's not keen on the idea of hatching bbs, catching some, washing them, feeding them to the fry, syphoning off the excess, at least once a day... Yet I know she would feel absolutely awful if anything happened to the fry.

What's less of a risk? Taking the babies up with me in the car (cambridge > glasgow 5-6hrs apx.) in a bucket, then back into their tank when I arrive. Or do I leave them unfed for over a week? I realise you can leave fully grown fish for two weeks but don't imagine the same rules apply for fry?


Thank you,
Steve

 

[nosoup4you]

At one month old your fry should be able to eat crushed flake and the fish stores sell frozen baby brine shrimp that would be easier on your girlfriend to feed.

 

[Colin_T]

Stick a heap of plants in the tank, turn the light on for 16hours a day, and leave them be. The fish will graze on the micro-organisms living on the plants, and if any algae appears, they will feed on that too.

If you want to grow fish quickly you should feed them 3 times a day until they are 4 months old. Then cut it back to twice a day until mature. Then once a day or every second day thereafter.